SpiceJet ordered to cut flights by 50 per cent after multiple snags

SpiceJet planes have been facing problems for the past several days after which DGCA has ordered to fly only 50 per cent of SpiceJet planes for 8 weeks. Within 18 days, there were 8 technical faults in the planes. Because of this, DGCA issued a notice to the company. Recently, the government, while replying in the Rajya Sabha, said that the DGCA had done spot checking of SpiceJet planes.

Minister of State for Civil Aviation VK Singh told Rajya Sabha that DGCA conducted 53 spot checks between July 9 and July 13 on 48 SpiceJet planes and no major security breach was observed in it.

In its notice to SpiceJet issued on July 6, the regulator had said that “the airline failed to provide safe air services under the Aircraft Rules, 1937. Looking at the events, it is found that the security margin declined due to poor internal security.” The regulator gave the airline three weeks to respond to the notice.

Earlier on July 5, a malfunction was detected in the oil indicator of a Delhi-Dubai flight. After which the emergency landing of the aircraft had to be done in Karachi, Pakistan. All the passengers on that flight were safe. The airline said – SpiceJet B-737 flight number SG-11 was going from Delhi to Dubai. Another plane was sent to take the passengers from there to Dubai.

Then priority landing of an aircraft flying for Kangra-Mumbai had to be done in Mumbai. According to the DGCA, there was a crack in the windshield of SpiceJet’s Q-400 aircraft at an altitude of 23,000 feet. Due to this, it was decided to land the Kangra-Mumbai flight at the Mumbai airport immediately.

However, another incident came to light of SpiceJet’s Boeing 737 freighter cargo plane which was going from Kolkata to Chongqing, China and the weather radar stopped working. After which the aircraft was sent back to Kolkata. The plane made a safe landing in Kolkata. The airlines gave this information on Wednesday.